Some excerpts from Half Broke Horses, a “true life novel” about author Jeannette Walls’ maternal grandmother, Lily Casey Smith (1903-1967), who grew up in the frontierland of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico during both World Wars, Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the advent of the car, the plane, and indoor plumbing.  Smith worked as a ranch hand and ranch manager,  a maid (in Chicago), and a teacher (and janitor and school bus driver) in one-room schoolhouses, and she sold bootleg alcohol from her house, raced horses, played poker (and won), drove a model T (and a Kaiser, and another Ford), … Continue reading Half Broke Horses